NYPL Blogs: Posts by Barbara Cohen-Stratyner/blog/author/103
enWhich Witch Is Which? The Other Salem/McCarthy Parablehttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/11/01/which-witch
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<p><em>For my last blog post before retirement, I am pleased to feature the research and analysis of Emma Winter Zeig, volunteer and former intern, on one of the songs discovered for <a href="https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/laughter-agita-rage">"Laughter, Agita and Rage": Political Cabaret in Isaiah Sheffer's New York</a>. The archival collections let us discover and match up lyrics with piano and piano-vocal scores, which we were able to date and annotate using the paper and electronic references resources, such as indexed newspaper and periodical data bases.</em></p>
<div class="digcol-image align-right align-right inline inline">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/b0d98c36-0b49-a9a4-e040-e00a1806063e"><img alt="&quot;&quot;" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=ps_the_cd22_324&amp;t=w" width="300px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Arthur Miller. Image ID ps_the_cd22_324, The New York Public Library.</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>October is one of the few times of the year when users of the phrase “witch-hunt” are actually referring to a search for witches. Usually, witch-hunts are reserved for decidedly non-supernatural people or ideas. Many Americans learn about the idea of a modern witch-hunt at the same time as they learn the story of Salem, America’s most famous literal witch-hunt, by reading Arthur Miller’s play <em>The Crucible</em>. However, Miller was not the only one to see the similarities between the 20th and 17th century witch-hunts. While researching the exhibit <a href="http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/laughter-agita-rage">"Laughter, Agita, and Rage”: Political Cabaret in Isaiah Sheffer’s New York</a>, currently at the <a href="http://www.nypl.org/locations/lpa">New York Public Library for the Performing Arts</a>, I reviewed some of the political songs in the <a href="http://archives.nypl.org/mus/20314">Jay Gorney Scores</a>, including one called “Riding the Broom.” The piano-vocal score for “Riding the Broom” is on view, along with other examples of political songwriting by both of its authors: the composer Jay Gorney and the lyricist Lewis Allan. Written in 1947, a whole six years before <em>The Crucible</em>, “Riding the Broom” contrasts America’s witch-hunt for Communists with its witch-hunt for witches. What it lacks in John Proctor, it more than makes up for in J. Parnell Thomas. </p>
<p>Saying that “Riding the Broom” is unpublished makes it sound better known than it actually is. A Google search for “Riding the Broom” and the name of either songwriter will elicit exactly two results, both archival records from nypl.org referring to the artifact currently on display. Though the song was little known, I did not find it by accident. Jay Gorney and Lewis Allan were both politically outspoken in their songs, so I knew that Gorney’s collection would contain material useful to the exhibit. In this respect the library finding aid was particularly helpful to me, since it allowed me to see that many of Gorney’s “Historic and Progressive” songs were grouped in one sub-series. Jay Gorney often used progressive social issues in his writing; his most famous composition, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” expressed the unease that society could not take care of the people who put in the work to build it, but “Riding the Broom” may have been closer to home. Gorney wasn’t called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) until 1953, but by 1947 the FBI was already investigating him. This was one of the other reasons that I was specifically interested in Gorney and in “Riding the Broom.” I had been looking to expand the McCarthy Era coverage of “Laughter, Agita, and Rage” and, knowing Gorney’s history, the title of “Riding the Broom” and that everything else in its sub-series was either during or close to the McCarthy Era, I suspected that the song would be a good prospect for exhibition even before I first saw it. After his hearing with HUAC Gorney was blacklisted, but his son remembered that, at least in the beginning, it was hard to break Gorney’s faith in the people’s goodwill and the power of theater. He mounted an updated revival of his 1930s show Meet the People where he wrote new political parody songs that satirized HUAC, including one called “Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been?” His son Daniel remembered Gorney explaining “When the American people learn the truth, they will not put up with what’s going on. They will do the right thing.” Though public opinion did turn on HUAC, Gorney never reached the heights of his pre-hearing career.</p>
<div class="digcol-image align-left align-left inline inline">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/ae69bdcc-1a5a-6f06-e040-e00a18063895"><img alt="&quot;&quot;" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=ps_the_cd13_186&amp;t=w" width="300px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Frank Sinatra. Image ID ps_the_cd13_186, The New York Public Library.</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>Lewis Allan had a long career and was credited on such famous songs as “<a href="http://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/06/29/house-i-live">The House I Live In</a>"and "<a href="http://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/08/29/pearl-primus-strange-fruit">Strange Fruit</a>”. It would be hard, however, to sum up Allan’s personal life, since he did not have one. Lewis Allan was a pseudonym created by an English teacher named Abel Meeropol. Left-leaning politically, Meeropol wrote songs that championed causes such as the rights of workers and the struggle against Franco in Spain. Often he brought humor to his criticisms of society, such as with his anti-appeasement tune “The Chamberlain Crawl,” which included the phrase: “Oh you start out in British style/ But you end up with a ‘Heil.’” “Riding the Broom” fits into Meeropol’s larger pattern of songs with a political message and a humorous bent, but the subject was ever more person because though he was not blacklisted, he was investigated by the Rapp-Coudert Committee (a committee questioning leftist tendencies among teachers) in 1940. He could have had even more of a motivation to write about this subject in 1947 because of mounting pressure on Communists in Hollywood at that time. Allan had just gotten recognition for Frank Sinatra’s rendition of “The House I Live In,” but hopes for a major career in films were cut short by suspicions about his political beliefs. The United States’ investigation of Communism also had implications for Meeropol’s personal life after he wrote “Riding the Broom,” since in the 1950s, he and his wife adopted Robert and Michael, the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.</p>
<p>Once I had found “Riding the Broom,” I was struck by its political argument, as well as the spritely and humorous tone with which it was delivered. I did research on the song’s background using electronic resources like ProQuest, available through nypl.org, and showed the artifact to exhibit’s curator, Barbara Cohen-Stratyner. We both agreed that it would be an excellent candidate for “Laughter, Agita, and Rage.” That said, I understood why the song has stayed in the shadows for all of these years. Though it makes a strident argument that the 1950s restrictions on political thought were hearkening back to a more conservative time, it could have been difficult for the song to reach a wide audience because of its structure. Broadly speaking, the first verse takes place in Puritan New England, and the second and third verses in modern times. However, half of the first verse is an impersonal narrator speaking in the third person, and the other half is an imagined quote from Cotton Mather in the second person. The song then segues into the chorus, which is no longer Mather speaking, but is still in the second person. The second verse is entirely the narrator’s voice, but is half in the first person and half in the second person. The third verse is entirely in the first person, but that is because it is supposed to be in the character of J. Parnell Thomas, chairman of HUAC, a fact that is not indicated in the song, but rather by a note in the sheet music. While these frequent changes in character and verbal style might have been relatively easy to convey in a performance setting, where multiple performers or other visual cues could be used, the structure of the song would hamper its ability to be a hit on the radio. </p>
<p>“Riding the Broom” makes use of the same metaphor as <em>The Crucible</em>, but to a very different effect. Meeropol and Gorney saw the Salem Witch Trials through their own personal lens—not Miller’s lesson in hysteria, but a lesson in the perils of a repressive society. “Riding the Broom” opens with a picture of life in 17th century Salem: “It was sinful to go bowling tho’ smiling faces might be seen that yearned to dance on the village green. No one dared to go May-Poling. Or their heads would soon be rolling.” It is worth noting both that no one was beheaded during the Salem Witch Trials, and that none of the accused’s supposed crimes were bowling-related, but it tells the listener a lot about Meeropol that the great crime he assigns to the Puritans is stifling freedom of expression (this is not an unfair charge, but is not usually the first complaint about a time when people were being executed based on “spectral evidence”). Like Miller, Meeropol was motivated by what he saw happening in the 20th century. Miller watched former friends name names and wrote about the conflicting and dubious motivations of the judges, accusers, and the accused in the 17th century. Meeropol saw artists being punished for their beliefs and for what they wrote, and imagined Cotton Mather telling an audience “You’re going to hell ‘cause you’re starting to think.” When Meeropol brings his song into the 20th century, he makes his point about freedom of speech even more explicit by citing the First Amendment, saying “The witching hour is here again and couples meet…all a-flutter all a-tremble. Is it legal to assemble?” Meeropol looked back at Puritan New England and saw a society where expression was demonized, not one where citizens were assembling to accuse their neighbors of consorting with demons, so that is what he wrote.</p>
<div class="digcol-image align-right align-right inline inline">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/5e66b3e8-d678-d471-e040-e00a180654d7"><img alt="&quot;&quot;" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=1663508&amp;t=w" width="300px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Cotton Mather. Image ID 1663508, The New York Public Library.</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>Meeropol’s world is free of <em>The Crucible</em>'s hysteria; in its place is the cool certainty of a domineering government. In “Riding the Broom” there are no accusers in Salem, and no one names names in HUAC. Instead, there are authority figures who hand down unquestioning and immediate judgment. In the first verse, the narrator explains “If someone questioned…Cotton Mather would reply: ‘The Devil’s got you deep inside you’ve given Old Satan a chance to hide.” In other words, the supposed witches in the Salem of “Riding the Broom” would reveal themselves to their accuser. It is the same case in J. Parnell Thomas’s verse, with Thomas singing, “I know sub-ver-sives by their look…You’ve dared to think and think out loud you’re causing a riot by getting a crowd.” Thomas identifies his “subversives” as people who “think out loud,” “caus[e] a riot,” and “[get] a crowd,” all very public behaviors. He also states that he knows them “by their look,” which is an internal process inside his own mind. This implies that the Thomas of the song has no informants and is questioning people he either believes to have Communist tendencies because of his own preconceptions of what a Communist looks like, or because those people have identified themselves to him in some way. Thomas’s assertion that he can identify Communists on sight also implies a degree of certainty that would be out of place in <em>The Crucible</em>, where some of the judges seem more concerned with making the trials seem justified than making sure justice is served. </p>
<p>Meeropol’s attitude in the song makes complete sense. Meeropol’s son Robert remembered a story about a meeting that Meeropol attended where he was given Communist literature, but, though he agreed with the cause, he did not really feel like reading the dense books. He said “I know who our friends are. I know who our enemies are. Isn’t that enough?” In 1947, when much of the more shocking testimony was still to come, it is easy to think that Meeropol could continue to make such a clear delineation between friend and enemy, and conclude that it was more likely for the government to assign guilt to the most public figures than for supposed friends to turn on each other.</p>
<div> </div>
<p><strong>Sources</strong>
</p><p>Gorney, Daniel. “Commie Kiddie-Porn Days Gone By,” Cinema Journal 44 no. 1 (2005): 90-96.</p>
<p>Kovaleff Baker, Nancy. “Abel Meeropol (a.k.a. Lewis Allan): political commentator and social conscience,” American Music 20, no. 1 (2002): 25.</p>
<p>Newstead, David Michael, “Strange Fruit and Abel Meeropol.” Philosophy of Shaving, August 22, 2016, <a href="https://philosophyofshaving.wordpress.com/2016/08/22/strange-fruit-and-abel-meeropol/" rel="nofollow">https://philosophyofshaving.wordpress.com/2016/08/22/strange-fruit-and-abel-meeropol/</a>.</p>
<div> </div>
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/11/01/which-witch#commentsTue, 01 Nov 2016 17:06:58 -0400"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime"https://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/10/11/brother-can-you-spare-dime
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<div class="digcol-image align-left align-left inline inline">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/64069640-67fc-0130-2ba0-58d385a7bbd0"><img alt="Men" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=5029176&amp;t=w" width="300px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Scene from the stage production Americana</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>Due to our unique existence as a research center of The New York Public Library and a constituent member of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc., we can post our exhibitions and public programs on “the blades,” the electronic signboards that line 65<sup>th</sup> St. Our designer is skilled at selecting images—like this one—that grab pedestrians’ attention.</p>
<p>For this exhibition on political cabaret, we chose this White Studio photograph from the 1932 edition of the revue <em>Americana</em>. It shows the introduction of the song “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime,” by Yip Harburg and Jay Gorney by the singer (Rex Weber) and Men (the male dance chorus from the Charles Weidman Company). The photograph is compelling with a bare stage, the singer staring down the audience on a backwards chair, and the men dressed in ageless work clothes, looking down. It is a stark contrast to the colorful scenes of opera, ballet and recitals that usually represent Lincoln Center presentations. The blades identify the name, place and date of the presentations, but not the content of the image, so pedestrians have to visit the corridor gallery exhibition to find out who and what are shown.</p>
<p>The show failed, but the song has come to represent the Depression. Among the great songwriter holdings in the Library for the Performing Arts are 3 archival collections of lyricist Yip Harburg, as well as one representing Jay Gorney [JBP 04-33]. “Laughter, agita and rage” includes examples of their works with other collaborators through the 1970s. Both men had long careers and frequently articulated their views on social conditions, politics and the responsibilities of songwriters. As Harburg wrote, “Songs have always been man’s anodyne against tyranny and terror.” Although the song’s impact is timeless, the lyrics are very specific. The verse begins “They used to tell me I was building a dream,” and lyrics refer to American accomplishments of the past such as, in the chorus, the railroad that “raced against time.” The lyrics also refer to the character’s past military service, although pacifist Harburg’s line cites the man “with the drum,” not the gun, and to the recent Bonus Army, veterans who camped out on the Washington Mall in the Summer of 1932 to protest lack of benefits and jobs. </p>
<p>Harburg spoke about the political background of the song in a speech at the 80<sup>th</sup> birthday celebration “at this point in rhyme” (March 20, 1977). A large print script is included in the Papers [*T-Mss 1989-014]:</p>
<p><em>“…the breadlines, along with the pathetic millions whose savings and hopes were swept away. The system fell apart. The great American dream was derailed. The people were not angry, but baffled. They were not in revolt, but bewildered…”</em>
</p><p>The photograph is in the exhibition to evoke the Depression as the era first associated with political cabaret, but also because Harburg updated the lyrics, providing his own example of parody. [*T-Mss 1990-002] “Brother, can you spare a buck” concerned inflation and disillusionment. </p>
<div class="digcol-image align-left align-left inline inline">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/9d7173cd-d5d3-b229-e040-e00a18060bef"><img alt="song lyrics" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=ps_the_2554&amp;t=w" width="300px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption"></figcaption></figure></div>
<p>A few research notes:</p>
<p>This edition of <em>Americana</em> is also important in dance history. As well as providing chorus members, the 1932 show provided employment and visibility for the developing American modern dance field. Charles Weidman and Doris Humphrey provided their companies to Americana as choruses, but also took the opportunity to premiere their own works, most memorably, Humphrey’s <em>The Shakers</em>. The Jerome Robbins Dance Division is the center for research on Humphrey, Weidman, and their companies, including Jose Limon, who can be seen in the image above. </p>
<p>A good source of information on the Bonus Army is Paul <a href="http://catalog.nypl.org/record=b16171921~S98">Dickson’s 2004 study</a>.</p>
<p>“Americana” is a search term which really strains the capabilities of the catalogue. As a general title, it turned up thousands of hits for books by everyone from John Updike to Ray Davies. Even when I switched to the Browse function and used the left-hand navigation to limit to Research and Score, I found entries for Victor Herbert, Randall Thompson and Leon Russell, as well as LPA’s own 19<sup>th</sup> century anthology <em>Democratic Songbook</em> (Mu 780.9 D). </p>
<p>If you are looking for a copy of “Brother, Can you spare a dime”, I would recommend a <a href="http://legacy.www.nypl.org/research/lpa/songindex/results.cfm">Song Index search</a>. Hits include 8 anthologies, such as Harburg 1 and Peter, Paul and Mary, as well as 2 Fake Books. </p>
Musical theatrehttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/10/11/brother-can-you-spare-dime#commentsTue, 11 Oct 2016 11:59:59 -0400J. Rosamond Johnson and "Lift Every Voice"https://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/09/22/johnson-lift-every-voice
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-b308-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99"><img alt="Cole &amp; Johnson" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=TH-03842&amp;t=w" width="100%" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson, 1902. Image ID: TH-03842</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>The <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/" rel="nofollow">National Museum of African American History &amp; Culture</a> opens on September 24, 2016. The opening ceremonies will be broadcast and streamed to museum, libraries and institutions around the country. The Smithsonian has decided to name the celebration “<a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/lift-every-voice/directory" rel="nofollow">Lift Every Voice</a>,” borrowing the phrase from the song known as America’s Black National Anthem.</p>
<p>James Weldon Johnson’s poem was set to music by his composer brother, J. [John] Rosamond Johnson in 1899 and premiered and published in 1900. I hope that as part of the events, there is a performance of the song, which is both deeply meaningful and artistically beautiful. Both Johnson brothers had long distinguished careers in literature and diplomacy (JW) and music (JR).</p>
<p>Both are amply represented in the collections of The New York Public Library, but as my LPA blog and contribution to the events, I want to focus on aspects of J. Rosamond Johnson’s careers, which have become more discoverable thanks to NYPL’s Digital Collections and Electronic Resources. I wrote “careers” since, in the career path of an early twentieth century African American musician, he wrote art songs, chorales, patriotic songs, and rags, while serving as a baritone, pianist and conductor. He was active in both the African American and Broadway/Tin Pan Alley worlds.</p>
<p>The photograph in formal wear shows him in his “class vaudeville” act with lyricist Bob Cole, which headlined on the Keith circuit, 1901-1903. A search of the <a href="https://www.nypl.org/collections/articles-databases/readex">Historic African American Newspapers</a> revealed many positive reviews such as that in <em>The</em> (Indianapolis) <em>Freeman</em> (August 16, 1902) which praised the “artful renditions of the parlor songwriting team.” Just to hit a few career points—he was the first African American conductor of a Broadway show, <em>Hello Paris</em> (1911); conducted the famed Clef Club Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; and, decades later, played Frazier in the 1935 original cast of the opera <em>Porgy and Bess</em> and the 1942 revival.</p>
<p>As part of this national thinking about “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in its role as an anthem for the NAACP, it seems appropriate, however, to focus on his lesser-known collaboration with W.E.B. DuBois. This research emerged as a sidebar to curating <em>Shakespeare’s Star-Turn in America</em> and the section on the May 1916 Shakespeare Tercentennial, last spring.</p>
<p>As part of the Shakespeare Celebration in New York, the organizing committee connected community organizations, such as settlement houses and school systems, to the main event, the pageant <em>Caliban…By the Yellow Sands</em>. They worked with social clubs, churches and fraternal groups and promoted Shakespeare-related events performances, concerts, and lectures.</p>
<p>The 1916 souvenir program in the Billy Rose Theatre Division lists “colored” organizations, primarily Harlem-based music and literary groups offering performances, readings and similar cultural/social events. The shocker at the end of the list of May performances was <em>The Star of Ethiopia</em>, the name of the 1913 pageant by DuBois. Thanks to the African American Periodicals and Historical Newspaper, it is possible to track <em>The Star of Ethiopia</em> through the news, social and entertainment pages of daily newspapers, such as the Washington <em>Bee </em>and Indianapolis <em>Freeman</em>, as well as the NAACP’s own magazine <em>The Crisis</em>. There was no evidence that it had been revived in NY and its presence in a Shakespeare celebration should have evoked general comment.</p>
<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/965e52fa-b90c-a5e7-e040-e00a18067ea1]"><img alt="The Star of Ethiopia" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=1995864&amp;t=w" width="100%" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">The Crisis. Image ID: 1995864</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>In research to determine why those organizations were involved, we realized that all were associated with J. Rosamond Johnson, educator/director Charles Burroughs and dance educator Dora Cole Norman. We discovered that they had also all been on the original production team of W.E.B. DuBois’s 1913 pageant <em>The Star of Ethopia </em>(which, in New York, celebrated the 50th anniversary of Emancipation). They may have promoted the possibility of a 1916 revival in New York by linking it to the Shakespeare pageant and corollary events.</p>
<p>We learned that <em>The</em> <em>Star of Ethopia </em>was performed in May 1916, but it was in Philadelphia, and linked to the centennial of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In fact, the Digital Collections image is an announcement for the Philadelphia performances, as published in <a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/965e52fa-b90c-a5e7-e040-e00a18067ea1"><em>The Crisis</em> (vol. 11, #6)</a>. The pageant did not appear during the New York or Boston seasons of <em>Caliban</em>.</p>
<p>Our congratulations to the new Museum and its staff. As the Johnsons wrote in the song’s second verse, “Now we stand at last.”</p>
Sheet musichttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/09/22/johnson-lift-every-voice#commentsThu, 22 Sep 2016 11:07:17 -0400Pearl Primus in "Strange Fruit"https://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/08/29/pearl-primus-strange-fruit
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/b366fe40-da56-0133-b0d4-00505686a51c"><img alt="Pearl Primus" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=5813282&amp;t=w" width="300px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Photograph by Myron Ehrenberg, October 25, 1945, “provided by [press representative] Ivan Black for Café Society.” Jerome Robbins Dance Division</figcaption></figure></div>
<p> </p>
<p>The Library for the Performing Arts’s exhibition on political cabaret focuses on the three series associated with Isaiah Sheffer, whose Papers are in the Billy Rose Theatre Division. It begins with a section introducing the genre from its 1930s-1940s roots in New York, with songs, sketch comedy, and dance artifacts, also based in LPA’s archival collections. The repeal of Prohibition brought new or re-opened spaces where audiences could enjoy theater, dance or music while purchasing legal drinks for those who, in the Depression, could afford them. Political cabaret became popular at the end of the decade, created by writers, songwriters, comics, musicians and dancers, many of whom were veterans of Federal Theatre Project companies. Two important venues from those years were the TAC Cabaret (at the Firehouse) and Barney Josephson's Cafe Society. </p>
<p>The most famous and memorable song from New York pre-WWII political cabaret scene was Lewis Allan’s anti-lynching anthem, “Strange Fruit,” which has been recognized as one of the most influential American song. Allan, the pen name of teacher Abel Meeropol, was a frequently contributor to the TAC Cabarets, most often in collaboration with Earl Robinson. For more on their “The House I Live In,” please see my <a href="https://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/06/29/house-i-live">Sinatra exhibition blog</a>. “Strange Fruit” is best known now through the recording by Billie Holiday, who featured the song in her performances at Café Society. </p>
<p>Pearl Primus, trained in Anthropology and at NY’s left-wing New Dance Group Studio, chose to use the lyrics only (without music) as a narrative for her choreography which debuted at her first recital, February 1943, at the 92<span>nd</span> St. YMHA. She later included it in her performances at Barney Josephson’s jazz club/cabaret Café Society, which this photograph promoted. Primus chose to create the abstract, modern dance in the character of a white woman, part of the crowd that had watched the lynching. She later wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The dance begins as the last person begins to leave the lynching ground and the horror of what she has seen grips her, and she has to do a smooth, fast roll away from that burning flesh.” —Pearl Primus on <em>Strange Fruit</em>, <em>Five Evenings with American Dance Pioneers: Pearl Primus</em>, April 29th, 1983 . </p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“Instead of growing twisted like a gnarled tree inside myself, I am able to dance out my anger and my frustrations. Yes, I have danced about lynchings, protested in dance against Jim Crow cars and systems which created sharecropping. I have attacked racial prejudices in all forms…” —Pearl Primus, <em>Dance Magazine</em>, November 1968. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The solo has been reconstructed and can be seen on <em>Free to Dance</em>, in performance from the American Dance Festival and John F. Kennedy Center, 2000, on *MGZIDVD 5-3178. An extended interview with Primus, <em>Evening 3 of Five Evenings with American Dance Pioneers</em> can be viewed or streamed at The Library for the Performing Arts. Additional oral histories and tapes of performance can be found at the Library for the Performing Arts and the Schomburg Center. </p>
<p>For more information on Primus, her career and choreography, see <a href="http://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb19723972__Spearl%20primus__P1%2C39__Orightresult__U__X4?lang=eng&amp;suite=def"><em>The Dance Claimed Me</em></a> (P Bio S) by Peggy and Murray Schwartz, Yale University Press, 2012.</p>
<p>This blog, and the Political Cabaret exhibition, was informed by research by the Performing Arts Museum's summer interns: Brittany Camacho, Colorado College, and Kameshia Shepherd, Bank Street College of Education, Program in Museum Education.</p>
Political Sciencehttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/08/29/pearl-primus-strange-fruit#commentsMon, 29 Aug 2016 11:14:25 -0400Are You Spoken For? An Ad Campaign and A Cultural Stereotypehttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/06/24/are-you-spoken
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<p><em>A guest blog by volunteer and former intern Emma Winter Zeig </em></p>
<div style="text-align:center">
<figure class="caption caption caption"><img class="media-element file-default" src="https://d140u095r09w96.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/Plymouth%20pitch.jpg" alt="" /><figcaption>Photograph taken by the author.</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>Before a television ad sells a product to the consumer, the company behind the product has to be sold on the ad. Recently, the major television networks presented their upcoming programming to advertisers in a series of events called the Upfronts. The goal is to showcase the audience that the network can provide for the advertiser, the most recent display of a relationship between television networks and advertisers that is as old as the television industry itself. The <a href="http://www.nypl.org/locations/divisions/billy-rose-theatre-division">Billy Rose Theatre Division at the Library for the Performing Arts</a> has an extensive collection that documents the development of television, including many examples of pitches made by networks to specific companies, like AT&amp;T or Coty Cosmetics, outlining how each network’s programming would be a match for the company’s ideal consumer. I had occasion to look at these pitches while researching 1950s children’s television for the library’s exhibit on <em>Sesame Street.</em> Advertisers realized early on that the ideal consumer might not have to even be in the room when the ad was playing. In 1956, NBC pitched an ad campaign to Plymouth that would ostensibly only air for an audience who had no independent income: they wanted to get men to buy second cars by airing ads targeting their stay-at-home wives. </p>
<p>The campaign (found in call number: MFL+nc 2402 #20), called “The ‘Better Half’ of Plymouth sales” was simple enough in theory: run ads for cars during daytime programming, so that women would be convinced to buy a second or replacement car, then run an ad during evening programming so that they would remember that they wanted the car, and convince their husbands to buy it for them. Playing off a variety of gender stereotypes, the pitch portrays men as easily led by their wives, and women as easily led by basically anyone. A cartoon on an early page of the booklet shows a shrewish wife upbraiding her husband for his car choice, alongside text that reads “It’s usually what she says to him about your make – that makes the sale” and an ominous question “Are <em>you </em>spoken for?” For this ad campaign to have any teeth, it has to pull off the hat trick of making women seem as though they are powerful and in control, but also as though they are an easier sell than their husbands. The case for control is clearly laid out: “Sell her…and she’ll be your supersaleman” since “she controls the household budget.” However, this isn’t an ad campaign targeting women who are in control of their own income, since it focuses on advertising during programs that aired when most working women would be at work, so as much as the campaign focuses on female-oriented programming, this is a campaign to sell cars to men. It is important to remember this, because the fact that the women are a mere stopping point on the road to the all-powerful male consumer is significant: if men are the goal, why not just design a campaign for men?</p>
<p>The pitch specifies that this plan will appeal to women because the ads will appear during NBC daytime programming geared toward women, namely, <em>Home</em> with Arlene Francis and <em>NBC Matinee Theater</em>. Plymouth may be trying to sell cars, but Plymouth didn’t come up with this pitch, NBC did, which means that it fills the network’s needs as much as it fills Plymouth’s. Daytime programming had a much smaller and much less diverse audience than evening programming, since the entire family could tune in once they were home from school or work. This meant that daytime commercial slots were not as valuable. NBC needed more sponsors for daytime programming because at this point a daytime ad was selling at for less than a quarter of the cost of an evening ad. If they phrased the pitch as another campaign directed at men, they would have to direct the advertisers to the evening programming, where they were already doing good business, and where Plymouth had already bought airtime.</p>
<p>In order for their marketing strategy to work, NBC had to portray the female audience as essential salespeople for their husbands, which means that it had to look like the husbands could not be swayed by mere television ads alone. Hugh Downs, the “Home-to-Home salesman” of <em>Home</em> is described as being able to “translate the technical and mechanical advantages of your cars into advantages for her and her family,” which is odd, for one thing, because the technical advantages are listed on the second page of the booklet, and things like “widest brake pedal” and “Highway Hi-Fi” don’t need a lot of translation. It is also interesting because while <em>Home</em>’s host, Arlene Francis, is described as “very successful at getting her to bring him places” this description of Downs is the only description the reader gets of what it takes to sell a woman on a product: in short, the only thing a woman needs to believe in a product is a generalized pitch directed at all women that specifically references the concept of family. </p>
<p>When it comes to men, however, the booklet outlines all of the reasons why a man could only be persuaded by his wife. His wife “knows him -- the prospect with the money —intimately,” in addition to knowing “her personal and family needs,” and “when and where it’s best to sell him.” The market for this ad campaign existed because of the expanding American middle class dream: a lot of families already owned a car, and the race was on to sell them a second one as they moved out to the suburbs. Part of that dream was the vision that this ad campaign played into, of a wife who desired material possessions, and a more discerning husband who provided for her.</p>
<p>According to this pitch, a woman might follow the lead of anyone that they see on TV, but a man needs to be asked at the right time, in the right place, in the right way, for reasons that relate personally to him, and by a person who knows him well, before he will make a purchase. Though this could just be chalked up to an unfortunate marketing moment, this is actually a strategy that is still used today, when advertisers try to sell one audience with the hope that their audience will sell the target demographic. The key difference? Today, when marketers look for an easily swayed audience with influence that overshadows their income, they usually focus on children. The child’s influence over his or her parents is called “the nag factor” or “pester power” by marketers, based on the fact that a child can wear down their parents, the more discerning consumers, based on their knowledge of when, where, and how to ask their parents for a product. Sixty years, ago, these were the characteristics the people who wrote the pitch for Plymouth pitch for NBC attributed not to the average five or ten year old, but to the average adult woman. </p>
Women's Studieshttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/06/24/are-you-spoken#commentsFri, 24 Jun 2016 10:19:26 -0400The Other Secret Gardenhttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/06/20/other-secret-garden
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-05a4-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99"><img alt="Frances Hodgson Burnett" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=1164532&amp;t=w" width="300px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Advertisement for Burnett's adult and juvenile fiction</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>Anti-Prom 2016 was a great success. The outfits designed by the High School of Fashion Industries were beautiful interpretations of this year’s theme–Secret Garden. I was especially impressed by the way they adapted the shapes of petals and leaves into innovative skirt shapes. For the students—and perhaps some of the Anti-Prom guests—Secret Garden was simply a concept: many attendees had never read the novel of that name. </p>
<p>Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel <a href="http://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb17314822__Sthe%20secret%20garden__Orightresult__U__X7;jsessionid=8D5B28DCC6352950092DF06AE3C97899?lang=eng&amp;suite=def"><em>The Secret Garden</em></a> (1911) was popular in its day and today. It has inspired a play, two films and, so far, 3 television mini-series. Like the prolific author’s other famous children’s novels, <a href="http://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb18838683__SLittle%20Lord%20Fauntleroy__Orightresult__U__X7?lang=eng&amp;suite=def"><em>Little Lord Fauntleroy</em></a> and <em>Sara Crewe, or <a href="http://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb17314803__Sthe%20little%20princess__P0%2C1__Orightresult__U__X7?lang=eng&amp;suite=def">A Little Princess</a></em>, they focus on children and their noble accommodation of adversity, often through transgressing social barriers. But unlike them, or her popular adult novels, such as <a href="http://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb14607080__SDawn%20of%20a%20Tomorrow__Orightresult__U__X7?lang=eng&amp;suite=def"><em>The Dawn of a Tomorrow</em></a>, <em>The Secret Garden</em> is quietly revolutionary. Active involvement with nature provides the novel’s heroine, Mary Craven, opportunities for growth despite adversity. Mary is portrayed at the beginning of the novel as a pampered, but ignored child of raj British in India. Sent home to England after her parents die from a cholera epidemic, she travels to her uncle’s isolated home on the Yorkshire moors. He is seldom there and she has a difficult period of adaption to cold, windy Yorkshire and his household staff. Without a spoiler alert, I will just say that she discovers the joys and challenges of nature, animals and, especially, active gardening. It is worth reading. There are many editions at J FIC B.</p>
<p>Despite the importance of nature and the outside world, it was quickly adapted for the stage – probably based on the vast popularity of the plays of her <em>The Dawn of a Tomorrow</em> (also filmed by Mary Pickford) and <em>Little Lord Fauntleroy</em>. In 1991, it was adapted into a successful Broadway musical with scripts and lyrics by Marsha Norman and music by Lucy Simon. The score can be found at <a href="https://catalog.nypl.org/search~S1?/cJFD+92-16809/cjfd+++++92++16809/-3,-1,0,E/2browse">JFD 92-16809</a>. There is an original cast recording in the research and circulating collections (<a href="https://catalog.nypl.org/search~S1?/j*LDC+5377+%28F%29/j*ldc+++5377+f/-3,-1,,B/browse">*LDC 5377 (F)</a>. There is also a sound recording of songs by Lucy Simon (JMD 11-273)</p>
<p>The popularity of child actress Margaret O’Brien brought on a feature film in 1949. Find it at <a href="https://catalog.nypl.org/search~S1?/eVC+792.9+S/e792.9/-3,-1,,B/browse">VC 792.9 S</a> . That film inspired Noel Straetfield’s YA novel <em>Movie Shoes</em> , also released in 1949 (J FIC S). Part of her “Shoes” series (and with references to the Fossil sisters from <em>Ballet Shoes</em>), it concerns a British family living temporarily in Los Angeles. As always, there is a dancer sister and one without special abilities who succeeds in the end. In this novel, the supposedly un-talented child is discovered and cast as Mary, based on her ability with animals. The novel includes wonderful descriptions of film-making.</p>
<p>The HSFI Anti-Prom garments and inspiration boards will be on display in the Mid-Manhattan Library's 5<sup>th</sup> Avenue windows for a month. Check them out; but also, check out the novel that may or may not have inspired them. </p>
Children's Literaturehttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/06/20/other-secret-garden#commentsMon, 20 Jun 2016 10:17:42 -0400Garden Fashion at Anti-Promhttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/06/06/fashion-anti-prom
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/4eb271c0-3f64-0131-0c66-58d385a7bbd0"><img alt=" 5208659" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=5208659&amp;t=w" width="100%" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Rose dancer, 1914. Image ID: 5208659</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>It is almost time for the Library’s fabulous <a href="http://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2015/06/17/anti-prom-2016-secret-garden-prom">Anti-Prom</a>. On Friday, June 17, New York teens will assemble on the steps of the Schwarzman Building and reveal to each other and the staff volunteers what they consider “prom wear” for the Secret Garden Anti-Prom.</p>
<p>For one class of attendees, how to dress for the Anti-Prom is a major concern. Each year, library staff work with the faculty at the High School for Fashion Industries on something between a class project and <a href="http://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/search/C__SProject Runway"><em>Project Runway</em></a>. Inspired by that popular reality show, the YA staff, with the design and draping teachers and school librarian, developed a 6-episode “challenge” to design outfits based on that year’s Anti-Prom’s theme. The participating Juniors visit NYPL’s three centers of visual culture (the Library for the Performing Arts, Mid-Manhattan’s Picture Collection, and SASB’s Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs) and work with the staff to learn about visual research. For inspiration, we pull photos and iconography for them and guide them through books on fashion history, costume design and material related to the theme. </p>
<p>For the VamProm, they looked at Victorian mourning fashion plates. For the Glam and the Punk Anti-Proms, LPA brought out books, zines and album covers. For this year’s Secret Garden, we showed examples of the many flower costumes designed for the vast Hippodrome Theater, donated by its producer <a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/search/index?filters[namePart_mtxt_s][]=Burnside%2C%20R.%20H.%20%28Robert%20Hubberthorne%29%2C%201873-1952&amp;keywords=&amp;layout=false#/?scroll=100">R. H. Burnside</a> (*T-MSS 1952-002). We introduced them to the <a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org">Digital Collections</a>, studying how nineteenth century botany illustrations could inspire sleeve or skirt construction, textile prints or embroidery, and headdresses. </p>
<p>They develop preliminary designs and patterns in class, make patterns and muslins, and get to swatch and purchase satins, velvets, and lace at Mood Fabric, <em>Project Runway’s</em> favorite store. A designer, such as Todd Oldham or Tim Gunn himself, gives the students suggestions and their teachers offer advice on construction. The outfits are modeled by them or friends on the grand staircase runway at the Anti-Prom. Finally, at the start of the next week, the summer interns and I install the outfits and inspiration boards in the Fifth Avenue windows of the Mid-Manhattan building, a former department store. </p>
<p>Only two weeks to wait…</p>
Designhttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/06/06/fashion-anti-prom#commentsMon, 06 Jun 2016 12:05:58 -0400British Soldiers' Theatre During the Revolutionary Warhttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/04/21/british-soldiers-theatre-revolutionary-war
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/5e66b3e8-bbe9-d471-e040-e00a180654d7"><img alt="John Street Theatre, NYC, c. 1791" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=1650651&amp;t=w" width="100%" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">John Street Theatre, NYC, c. 1791. Image ID: 1650651</figcaption></figure></div>
<p><em>A guest post on the research that informed the earliest material in Shakespeare's Star Turn in America, by volunteer (and former intern) Emma Winter Zeig.</em>
</p><p>When Shakespeare wrote “All the World’s a Stage,” he probably wasn’t thinking that his words would someday be performed in an occupied city by an invading army. Nevertheless, during the American Revolution, theater seemed to spring up in the oddest of places, often in productions acted by soldiers. The American army attempted a few performances, but it was the British army that seemed to have a firm grasp on the wartime theatrical process.</p>
<p>As the army occupied Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City, they used their time as an invading power to set up theaters. Advertisements for their productions can be seen in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’ current exhibition<em>, <a href="http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/shakespeares-star-turn-america">Shakespeare’s Star Turn in America</a></em>, as obtained from the library’s electronic resources, particularly <a href="http://www.nypl.org/collections/articles-databases/americas-historical-newspapers">America’s Historical Newspapers</a>.</p>
<p>The military theatrical companies were under the command of three men, General John Burgoyne in Boston, General William Howe in Philadelphia, and General Henry Clinton in New York, but there were officers who acted in more than one location. One of the most famous men of the company, Major John André, was active in both Philadelphia and New York. However, he may have confined his Philadelphia activities to painting an elaborate stage backdrop. It ended up outliving him, as he was executed by the Continental Army, and the backdrop stayed in the Southwark Theatre until that theater burned down in 1821.</p>
<p>The military’s performances in Boston were the briefest, but they were the most political. While in Boston, Burgoyne penned an attack on his American foes in the form of a farce entitled <em>The Boston Blockade</em>. The play’s George Washington was “an uncouth figure, awkward in gait, wearing a large wig and a rusty sword.” A handbill was printed entitled “A Vaudevil Sung by the Characters…of a new Farce, called the Boston Blockade,” which contains a threat to the American Whigs, saying “Ye…yanktied Prigs,/ Who are Tyrants in Custom, yet call yourselves Whigs;/ In return for the Favours you’ve lavished on me,/ May I see you all hanged upon Liberty Tree.” The word “Tyrant” is referring to the Puritan attitude towards theater, but it encapsulates their political displeasure with a “Tyrant” America, which they no longer regarded as entirely British, even if they were fighting to keep it a part of the empire.</p>
<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-02d3-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99"><img alt="Lt.-Gen. John Burgoyne" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=1164467&amp;t=w" width="100%" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Engravings depicting the surrender of Lt. Gen. John Burgoyne. Image ID: 1164467</figcaption></figure></div>
<p><br />
In Philadelphia, the Thespians staged their biggest piece of political theater. The event, called the Meschianza, was an elaborate farewell for General Howe as he departed the city. Major André designed a party around a joust between two fictional houses: the Burning Mountain and the Blended Rose. The ladies of each house were selected from within the city and the Knights were drawn from the soldiers’ ranks. There was more than a hint of British supremacy, since the outdoor decorations included a “large triumphant arch in honor to Lord Howe.” Though some party attendees lamented that they would never see the like of the Meschianza again, the extravagance in wartime was widely viewed as wasteful and callous. Elizabeth Drinker, whose family had leaned loyalist in the past, condemned the event, remarking “How insensible do these people appear, while our land is so greatly desolated, and death and sore destruction has overtaken and impends so many.”</p>
<p>In New York, the company seemed, for the most part, to be developing themselves artistically. The military thespians had sporadically produced Shakespeare before, but in New York, they produced multiple performances of six plays by Shakespeare. This seems like a choice made partially for prestige reasons because even though comedies and farces were more popular with audiences, the company chose only one comedy, and five of Shakespeare’s dramas. Though they never produced a completely original play, the New York company also started to write original material more regularly in the form of prologues given before select performances.</p>
<p>The prologues contained many instances of pro-British flattery, such as the exclamation “O Britons! (and your generous thirst of fame/Has fully prov’d you worthy of the name).” Though this prologue portrayed the British as heroes, their usual method of self promotion revolved around being seen as charitable, since their performances were advertised as benefiting widows and orphans. One typical prologue stated “The helpless offspring of the solder slain,/ No longer left to weep and mourn in vain,/ Became the object of our future care.” Some historians believe that the actual amount given to charity was quite small, given the expenses they accrued in putting up their performances.</p>
<p>The prevailing opinion both at the time and in the historical record is that the soldiers started their theaters as a means of alleviating boredom, or because they did not take the war seriously. One historian calls the project an “antidote for the tedium of military occupation.” There is certainly a lot of support for this theory, often from the mouths of the soldiers themselves. One Hessian officer expressed the matter succinctly, saying that during the occupation in Philadelphia there were enough “assemblies, concerts, comedies, clubs, and the like [to] make us forget there is any war, save that it is a capital joke.” Some of the soldiers realized that their reveling might be sending the wrong message. One soldier, Thomas Stanley, was concerned, saying “I hear a great many people blame us for acting, and think we might have found something better to do.” He was correct, since the soldiers’ extravagant behavior drew criticism both in America and back in Britain.</p>
<p>An unnamed British soldier wrote an article in a Philadelphia newspaper following the evacuation of Boston where he lamented that “England seems to have forgot us, and we endeavored to forget ourselves.” For some, theater may have helped with the feeling of isolation in a strange country. The New York prologues contain many passages about the war, including one that stated “Here we renounce the war’s unnatural strife/ For the domestic scenes of peaceful life;/…Where mirth and sadness separately strive/ To keep imagination’s flame alive.” In a way, “mirth and sadness separately strive” is an apt description of the soldier’s entire endeavor; happiness and sadness commingling to produce something truly ridiculous, often offensive, but sometimes kind of beautiful.</p>
<h2>Sources</h2>
<p>Scheer, George F. and Hugh F. Rankin. <em><a href="http://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb17373547__Sscheer%20rankin__Orightresult__U__X2?lang=eng&amp;suite=def">Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolution Through the Eyes of Those Who Fought and Lived It</a>.</em> Cleveland: De Capo Press, 1957.</p>
<p>Judith Van Buskirk. “They Didn’t Join the Band: Disaffected Women in Revolutionary Philadelphia,” <em>Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies</em> 58, no. 3 (1995): 317.</p>
<p>Seilhamer, George Overcash. <em><a href="http://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb17909504__SSeilhamer__Orightresult__U__X4?lang=eng&amp;suite=def">History of the American Theatre: During the Revolution and After</a>. </em>Philadelphia: Globe Printing House, 1889.</p>
<p>Henderson, Mary C. <em><a href="http://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb17556458__Shenderson%2C%20mary__P0%2C4__Orightresult__U__X4?lang=eng&amp;suite=def">The City and the Theatre: New York Playhouses from Bowling Green to Times Square</a>.</em> Clifton, New Jersey: James T. White and Company, 1973.</p>
<p>Nathans, Heather S. <em><a href="http://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb15809765__Snathans%2C%20heather__P0%2C1__Orightresult__U__X4?lang=eng&amp;suite=def">Early American Theatre from the Revolution to Thomas Jefferson: Into the Hands of the People</a>.</em> Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.</p>
<p>"Untitled Article,” <em>Pennsylvania Ledger</em> (Philadelphia, PA), Sept. 25, 1776.</p>
Theatrehttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/04/21/british-soldiers-theatre-revolutionary-war#commentsThu, 21 Apr 2016 18:04:52 -0400The Mystery Shakespeare Plothttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/04/11/mystery-plot-henry-v
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<div style="text-align:center">
<figure class="caption caption caption"><img alt="King Henry V" class="media-element file-default" height="375" src="//www.nypl.org/sites/default/files/1875%20scene%20plot%20installed.JPG" title="The scene plot for King Henry V, 1875, after conservation." width="500" /><figcaption>Henry V. Stage-plot. Directions for scenery, curtains, drops, etc. with drawings and diagrams. <a href="http://catalog.nypl.org/search%7ES1?/c*NDB+[RBS]+97-1287+%28Shakespeare%2C+W.+Henry+V%29/c*ndb+[rbs]+++++97+++1287+shakespeare+w+henry+v/-3,-1,0,E/2browse">*NDB [RBS] 97-1287 (Shakespeare, W. Henry V)</a></figcaption></figure></div>
<p><em>This post is a report by volunteer/former intern Emma Winter Zeig on her research leading to the identification of an artifact in the exhibition, </em><a href="http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/shakespeares-star-turn-america">Shakespeare's Star Turn in America</a><em>.</em>
</p><p>Who among us can resist a mystery? While doing research for The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’s current exhibition, <em>Shakespeare’s Star Turn in America</em>, I happened across an entry in the online catalog as intriguing as it was mysterious. <a href="http://catalog.nypl.org/search~S1?/j*NCP%2B+%28Shakespeare%2C+W.+Henry+the+Fifth.+1875%29/j*ncp%2B+shakespeare+w+henry+the+fifth+++1875/-3%2C-1%2C0%2CB/exact&amp;FF=j*ncp%2B+shakespeare+w+henry+the+fifth+++1875&amp;1%2C4%2C">The entry was listed as a script for <em>King Henry V</em>, but the description said “Scene Plot” and the date was listed, cryptically, as “18-?”</a> Upon examination, the artifact provided more questions than answers. It was initially folded to the size of a dime store novel, but unfolded into an oddly shaped piece of material that was ruled like a ledger, but felt like starched muslin, it was a scene plot, with a careful list of set pieces in each scene of the play, accompanied by rough drawings of their arrangement. Absent, however, was any kind of label or date with which to place the production for which it was drawn.</p>
<p>I scoured the text of the scene plot, looking for proper nouns that appeared on the plot, but not in <em>Henry V</em>. I found three, including one that said “Haas Palace Cloth,” which I posited might refer to someone involved in creating the backdrop. However, this angle yielded no leads, so I was back to square one. Undeterred, I sat down with Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, the curator, to see if we could narrow down the potential date range. We were fairly confident in the nineteenth century listing in the catalog, since it didn’t have the standardized drafting style or drafter’s handwriting that is more common in twentieth century plots. That still left us with at least a century of <em>Henry V </em>productions.</p>
<p>What had impressed me about the design from the beginning was its scale; there are multiple sets with more than one level, and an almost excessive amount of backdrops. The set has wings, but the large amount of three dimensional elements indicate that it was moving away from the traditional “wing and border” style, a transition that was happening throughout the<sup></sup>nineteenth century, suggesting a later production. It still seemed like a lot of scenery for a traveling production, unless they were loading scenery on a train, which meant that I could limit my search to cities that were railway hubs.</p>
<p>I continued searching until I read a review of the New York City opening of a production that toured in 1875. <em>The World</em>’s reviewer noted that “Mr. Calvert…has adopted a French custom, and drops the tableau curtain at the end of each scene.” This observation struck a chord, so I consulted my reference photos of the plot, and sure enough, there was a note after each scene: “Curtain descends.”</p>
<p><a href="http://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/search/C__SCharles%20Calvert%20shakespeare__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&amp;suite=def">Charles Calvert</a> was the director of the 1875 <em>Henry V</em> that was “the finest spectacle that has ever been presented on the American stage” according to one reporter. Though many reporters remarked on the sheer size of the set, I was not yet convinced that this was the production I had been seeking.</p>
<p>I read as many reviews as I could using articles found in <a href="http://www.nypl.org/collections/articles-databases/americas-historical-newspapers"><em>America’s Historical Newspapers</em></a>, looking for specific details I could match to the scene plot, though this proved difficult, since so many of the features described by reviewers could have belonged to any set of <em>Henry V</em>. I then started to look for places where the scene plot departed from the script as written by Shakespeare, in order to find what truly made this production unique.</p>
<p>As written, Act I, Scene V takes place in a council chamber in Southampton, but the scene plot clearly places it on a dock, with notations for water, ships, and a gang plank. A review of the Calvert production noted “The scene…gave a…view of the beach at Southampton,” implying that both scenes had a seaside theme. In the script of <em>Henry V</em>, Henry’s triumphal return to London is not seen on stage, but recalled by a speaker in a prologue that begins Act V. This return was the centerpiece of the Calvert production, with one reviewer recalling “At the end of the fourth act a scene representing <em>King Henry’s</em> reception on his return to London brought the show to its limit of magnificence.” The Calvert production altered the text by producing the scene, but they also moved it from the beginning of Act V to the end of Act IV. On the scene plot, the last scene in Act IV takes place on a street in front of an arch, just like the Calvert production, and the drop behind it is called the “London City Drop,” suggesting that it was also a staging of Henry’s return.</p>
<p>Without the names and dates of a conventionally labeled scene plot, it is hard to say with certainty that the plot documents the Calvert production, but it is definitely possible that the two are one and the same. Sarony, NY, photographed actors on what seems like set elements, publishing a series of cabinet photographs.</p>
<p>We were able to verify that it was designed for touring by looking at <em>Henry V</em> program files and scrapbooks in the Billy Rose Theatre Division. The production began at Calvert’s Prince’s Theatre, Manchester, toured North America for parts of 3 years, and ended its travels in Australia, where the lead actor remained.</p>
<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-096f-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99"><img alt="King Henry V (1875). TH-26488" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=TH-26488&amp;t=w" width="100%" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">King Henry V (1875). Image ID: TH-26488</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>The title of “finest spectacle” is a hard one to defend, but the Calvert <em>Henry V</em> would have had a strong case. The actual cast of <em>Henry V</em> was 54 actors, but the company was rounded out by crew and extras numbering in the hundreds, with one reviewer noting “…the one feature which most conspicuously distinguished the revival of <em>Henry V</em>...is the unprecedented number of people and horses which are frequently on the stage at the same time.” These numbers were used to complete the crowd and battle scenes, but also to stage a series of tableaux vivant.</p>
<p>The tableau at the end of Henry’s London return was so well received that the curtain was raised and lowered several times as long as the audience’s applause held out. The production was not without its problems; George Ringold, the production’s Henry, came down with a cold that affected his voice on opening night, which was noted by every single reviewer, with varying degrees of understanding. Another obstacle was the impression among several reviewers that the source material itself was inferior: “far from being dramatic in the literary sense in which we apply that word to the other and greater plays of Shakespeare… its interest is a military one mainly, and its poetic beauties are…incidental.”</p>
<p>Despite others’ doubts, Calvert was confident in the play and in his mission. On the opening night, he took the stage and spoke about his wish to share Shakespeare with the public, ending with a request to the audience that echoes centuries of scholars, readers, and theatergoers who have discovered a love of the Bard: “If I speak too much like an enthusiast pray remember, ladies and gentlemen, that on this subject I am one, and forgive me.”</p>
Theatrehttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/04/11/mystery-plot-henry-v#commentsMon, 11 Apr 2016 10:24:36 -0400Falstaff On the Road: Or, Why Dickens Was Right About Americahttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/04/04/falstaff-on-road
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-0964-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99"><img alt="J. H. Hackett as Falstaff" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=TH-26477&amp;t=w" width="100%" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">James H. Hackett as Falstaff. Image ID: TH-26477</figcaption></figure></div>
<p><a href="http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/shakespeares-star-turn-america"><em>Shakespeare’s Star Turn in America</em></a> focuses on production of Shakespeare’s works in North American theaters and why certain plays were popular at specific times. However, it became obvious in our research that some plays are popular because actors want to do them. A prime example of this phenomenon is the almost constant production of the Falstaff plays<em>—King Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2</em>, as well as <em>The Merry Wives of Windsor</em>. There are two prime examples of actors and actor/managers who based their later careers on performing Sir John Falstaff.</p>
<p>James H. Hackett played Falstaff over at least 30 years. The exhibition includes broadsides for <em>King Henry IV, Part 1</em>, from the Park Theatre, NY, on March 20, 1839, and from Booth’s Theatre, NY, for December 31, 1869. He was featured in Johnson &amp; Fry engravings for the <em>Henry</em> plays and a Hollies engraving after a daguerreotype by Mayall. The poses are similar to the one above, although in the second, he wears the antler headdress from <em>The</em> <em>Merry Wives of Windsor</em>. Fun fact: His son, James K. Hackett, also had a long careeer with one role, but he played the identical cousins, Rudolph and Rupert, in the stage and silent film adaptations of Antony Hope's<em> The Prisoner of Zenda</em>. My <a href="http://www.nypl.org/blog/2010/04/23/stuck-zenda">second ever post (April 2010)</a> was about his portrait in the recognizable <em>Zenda </em>pose.</p>
<p>Benedict de Bar played Falstaff at his own theaters and opera houses along his Mississippi and Missouri River circuits in the 1860s and 1870s. His broadsides include a roundel of him in that character, probably based on his portrait in profile.</p>
<p>So what does this have to do with Dickens? They would say “nothing.” He would claim “American plagiarism!” Charles Dickens was famously upset that his novels were adapted, re-published and ripped-off by American publishers. Did he ever know about the Falstaffs?</p>
<p>One of the pleasures of seeing Shakespeare in the 18<sup>th</sup> through mid-19<sup>th</sup> centuries was that the program also included an afterpiece and frequently solos and duets by other members of their companies. So we know what else was on the program with these productions of <em>Henry IV</em>.</p>
<p>Ben de Bar had shown up in my <em>Touring West</em> research so I knew to request his bright yellow broadsides from New Orleans, Iowa and Memphis (you may have to check a map to understand why his your routes made sense). I had not remembered the afterpiece. He paired performances of <em>King Henry IV </em>with his own <em>Micawber and Toodles. </em> We Googled Toodles (who turns out to be a character in a different Dickens novel) and decided that he meant <em>Traddles</em>, who works with Micawber. The afterpiece was based on the characters in Charles Dickens’s popular novel <em>David Copperfield </em>(published serially in 1849-1850). But Dickens’s name is nowhere to be found on the program.</p>
<p>When Hackett performed as Falstaff in the 1830s, his afterpiece was also an uncredited adaptation. <em>King Henry IV</em> was followed by <em>Nicholas Nickelby</em>, March 20, 1839. The second play, <em>Nicholas Nickelby; or, Doings at Do-the-Boys Hall </em>may have been based on the Edward Stirling adaptation which was performed at the Adelphi Theatre, London, that season, or may have been a native-born adaptation of the novel. It maintains the misspelling of the character's name from the Stirling adaptation.</p>
<p>Something about the dates seemed wrong and we kept double checking that <em>Nickelby</em> appeared on the 1839, not 1869, broadside. It did. But, Charles Dickens’s novel, <a href="http://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb17212032__Snicholas%20nickleby__Orightresult__X7?lang=eng&amp;suite=def"><em>Nicholas Nickleby</em></a>, was published serially in chapters 1 – 65 and it was not completely published when the play was done in NY. By even the fastest possible crossing (15 days by steam powered ship), only chapters 1 through 37-39 would have been available in New York for Hackett’s performances. It is amazing what you can find out through NYPL’s electronic resources!</p>
<p>Even assuming that Hackett’s version adapted the Stirling adaptation of episodes in the early chapters, it means that New Yorkers saw the characters before Dickens wrote their fates. Neither Dickens nor Stirling was credited on the program.</p>
<p>Maybe the actors were inspired by Falstaff’s famously loose ethics. Maybe Dickens was right about America's disregard for copyright.</p>
English and American Literaturehttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/04/04/falstaff-on-road#commentsMon, 04 Apr 2016 11:01:40 -0400O Romeo, Romeohttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/02/27/o-romeo-romeo
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<p> </p>
<figure class="caption caption caption"><img alt="Romeo and Juliet, Margaret Mather, poster" title="Romeo and Juliet, Margaret Mather, poster" class="media-element file-default" src="https://d140u095r09w96.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/41.jpg" /><figcaption>Promotional Brochure, "Thoughts of Prominent Men Regarding Margaret Mather," for her Romeo and Juliet tour, back cover, 1880s.</figcaption></figure><p> </p>
<p><a href="http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/shakespeares-star-turn-america"><em>Shakespeare's Star Turn in America</em></a>, the new exhibition at the <a href="http://www.nypl.org/locations/lpa">New York Public Library for the Performing Arts</a>, is part of an international celebration of Shakespeare. With the exhibition and public programs, we are also develping an educator's portal to help classroom teachers and teaching artists find material in the <a href="http://nypl.org">catalogue</a> and <a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/">Digital Collection</a>.</p>
<p>Our exhibition key image is the balcony scene from <em>Romeo and Julie</em>t. A very graphic image of <a href="http://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/search/C__Sromeo%20and%20juliet__Orightresult__U?lang=eng"><em>Romeo and Juliet</em></a> embracing -- you can decide for yourself if it is the start or end of the scene. The image was created for a promotional pamphlet. It was created for J. M. Hill, producer and promoter, to find bookings and audiences for the Canadian actress <a href="http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/finlayson_margaret_12E.html" rel="nofollow">Margaret Mather</a>, making her US debut as Juliet at <a href="http://interactive.wttw.com/timemachine/mcvicker%E2%80%99s-theater" rel="nofollow">McVicker’s Theater</a>, Chicago on August 28, 1882. The brochure, and two similar promotional publications, were typical of the era in that they cited authority. The front cover bears the title “Thoughts of Prominent Men,” and includes short essays by municipal leaders as well as drama critics. Followers of my blogs know that I collect false and irrelevant authority, but, in this case, the essays do focus on how the actress interpreted the role. </p>
<p>The brochures were excellent examples of 4-color engraved plate printing. They were unusual in that Mather was credited with the illustrations – the image of the balcony scene here, a full-length portrait as Rosalind (in male garb as Ganymede) and an oil painting of The Death of Juliet. Juliet’s false and final death scenes were cited in reviews of her performance – one said that she rolled down a staircase after taking the potion. The painting shows her on a shallow, paved path leading from the crypt. Although it was expected that well bred young women could sketch, it was very unusual for actresses to be credited with illustrating their own productions.</p>
<p>Mather died young in 1898 while on tour with her Shakespeare repertory of <em>Romeo and Juliet</em>, <em>As You Like It</em> and an unusual revival of <em>Cymbeline</em>. </p>
<p>There is a prompt script documenting Mather’s performance as Juliet in the <a href="http://www.nypl.org/locations/divisions/billy-rose-theatre-division">Billy Rose Theatre Division</a>. Like most performer scripts, it is based on a published book, in this case, a Samuel French acting edition. <em><a href="http://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb14131095__Smargaret%20mather__Orightresult__X3?lang=eng&amp;suite=def">Romeo and Juliet. A tragedy in five acts, by William Shakespeare. It reveals “the stage business, cast of characters, costumes, relative positions, &amp;c.</a></em></p>
<p>The exhibition was planned to focus attention on LPA’s extraordinary collection of documentations of Shakespeare performance in North America. But, in this case, I would look to the illustration to learn why Mather’s Juliet is still remembered. </p>
Theatrehttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/02/27/o-romeo-romeo#commentsSat, 27 Feb 2016 17:26:52 -0500Head Shots: Doubles, Triples and Quadshttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/01/04/head-shots-double-exposures
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<p>Long before cut and paste, there was cutting and pasting. As part of the development of <em>Head Shots</em>, we searched out articles and books that advised actors and photographers on ideal examples. All agreed that a headshots should be simple, neutral and focus attention on the performer’s face. And most of the exemplar images in the exhibition, no matter how expert the photographers, are basically faces inside rectangles. One face... one photo. But variations were possible.</p>
<p>We found examples of headshots that played with the standards of 8 x 10 glossies and followed the experimentation more associated with art photography. The most frequent anomaly was the use of double and even triple exposures. Photographers adopted techniques used by Man Ray and Francis Bruguiere—and by advertising studios. At best, they made more memorable headshots which showed multiple aspects of the performer. At worst, they interfered with the casting directors' ability to imagine the performer in roles.</p>
<p>Anyone with PhotoShop can accomplish the effect now with 3 clicks, but it was a much more complicated and laborious procedure in the analog era. It did begin, however, like any headshot with an actor’s face photographed against a neutral background so that the face or profile “floats” away from the surface. Few of these examples, unfortunately, credit photographers.</p>
<p>Here is the head shot of actress Strelsa Leeds.</p>
<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-126a-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99"><img alt=" TH-28874 " src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=TH-28874 &amp;t=w" width="300px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Strelsa Leeds. Image ID: TH-28874</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>Each face could be carefully cut out from the negative or re-photographed as a mechanical with the background matted out. Then the faces could be re-positioned and re-photographed to make a montage.</p>
<p>Here, the face of character actor Fred Sadoff is framed by his profile.</p>
<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-398c-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99"><img alt=" TH-48823" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=TH-48823&amp;t=w" width="300px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Fred Sadoff. Image ID: TH-48823</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>Full face and profile images of Carol Hill are combined in this example.</p>
<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-f48e-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99"><img alt=" TH-20939 " src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=TH-20939 &amp;t=w" width="300px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Carol Hill. Image ID: TH-20939</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>Some of the most innovative montage shots were created by <a href="http://archives.nypl.org/the/21738">Avery Willard</a>. The Billy Rose Theatre Division has a large collection of his portraits, as well as his documentation of early Off- and Off-Off-Broadway, Gay theater, and the New York Shakespeare Festival. The experimental photographer and filmmaker created many multiple exposure montages in both media. The exhibition featured head shots and promotional portraits. But, here is a quadruple exposure that we could not use in the exhibition since it shows characters. In it, Willard summons s <em>South Pacific</em>’s doomed lovers in his montage of William Tabbert (as Lt. Cabell) with the tripled portraits of Betta St. John as Liat.</p>
<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/7ade6a2e-5dcd-4446-e040-e00a1806568b"><img alt=" 1809226" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=1809226&amp;t=w" width="300px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Betta St. John (Liat) and William Tabbert (Lt. Joseph Cable) in a montage from South Pacific. Image ID: 1809226</figcaption></figure></div>
Theatrehttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/01/04/head-shots-double-exposures#commentsMon, 04 Jan 2016 14:44:05 -0500Head Shots: Tallulah Bankhead's Sleevehttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/12/14/head-shots-tallulah-bankheads-sleeve
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<div class="digcol-image align-left align-left inline inline">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/1581e640-fc88-0130-47b5-58d385a7b928"><img alt=" 5057002" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=5057002&amp;t=w" width="300px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Tallulah Bankhead. Photograph by Florence Vandamm. Image ID: 5057002</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>If you walk west on 65<sup>th</sup> Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, you will go past the “blades.” These electronic signposts promote current and upcoming events at Lincoln Center. They are 8’ x 4’ and heavily pixelated, as if you were standing too close to a stadium Diamond-vision screen. The Library for the Performing Arts’ designer is expert at selecting which exhibition images are the most eye-catching in the Blades’ zoom.</p>
<p><em>Head Shots</em> is represented on the blades by this portrait of Tallulah Bankhead by Florence Vandamm. It can be seen in the exhibition’s entrance area and, for the last few months, has been featured on the 65<sup>th</sup> St. blades. Vandamm photographed her often in costume and plays, frequently providing the images for Playbill covers. In the Vandamm clipping file, there is a wonderful article in the <em>Sunday News</em> (August 28, 1949) that described her directing Bankhead how to fall down a staircase to best effect for press photos of the period piece, <em>The Eagle with Two Heads</em>.</p>
<p>The famous photographs of Bankhead in <a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/image_id/ps_the_cd120_1831"><em>Rain</em></a> and <a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/image_id/psnypl_the_5150"><em>The Little Foxes</em></a> are Vandamms. There are also many portraits in contemporary clothing not associated with specific roles. This one was taken just before her Broadway appearances in Odets’s <em>They Clash By Night</em> (1941) and Saroyan’s <em>Skin of Our Teeth</em> (1942) and her most important film, Hitchcock’s <em>Lifeboat </em>(Twentieth Century-Fox, 1944). Although unquestionably her work, the photograph is not from the vast Vandamm Collection of Theatrical Photographs. It was found in the Bankhead <a href="http://catalog.nypl.org/search~S1/?searchtype=c&amp;searcharg=*T-Pho B">*T-Pho B</a> file.</p>
<p>There are at least three portraits from this studio session with the same elegant profile, hair, make-up, jewelry, and blouse. The raw silk blouse, with its uniquely draped sleeve, is an unusual choice for a head shot, since the sunburst effect of the sleeve cap commands the eye. It comes from a period in which she was wearing Mainbocher whenever possible and the combination of simplicity of fabric and unique detail draping fits his design aesthetic. Look at the Mainbocher garment details in the <a href="http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&amp;VF=MNYO28_4" rel="nofollow">Museum of the City of New York’s online exhibition</a> to see why I think he designed the sleeve. This 7/8 position image was used to promote her appearance on the summer theater circuit in 1942; a similar one with the camera pointing straight at the sleeve cap was distributed for autographs.</p>
<p>But why was it my choice for a key image? There is a section of the exhibit on the selection process and how editing, proofing and cropping serve the creation of headshots. We selected this image as an example of one of the steps in selection—an interim step image that is visible only on the blades with its Diamond Vision impact. On the blades, you can see slight airbrushing under the chin. It would have been blended in until imperceptible when it was released by the Vandamm Studio. But somehow, as it appears on the blades, much larger than life, the interim image is even more about vulnerability and self-representation—the key elements that make headshots so memorable.</p>
Theatrehttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/12/14/head-shots-tallulah-bankheads-sleeve#commentsMon, 14 Dec 2015 12:06:09 -0500Head Shots: Dulcie Cooperhttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/12/07/head-shots-dulcie-cooper
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<p><em>Guest post by Emma Winter Zeig, volunteer and former intern at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.</em></p>
<div class="digcol-image align-right align-right inline inline">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-b637-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99"><img alt="Dulcie Cooper" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=TH-04678&amp;t=w" width="300px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Dulcie Cooper. Image ID: TH-04678</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>If you’ve never heard of Dulcie Cooper, don’t worry, there’s still time to get familiar: two portraits of her are on display in <em>Head Shots</em>, on display at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts through December 30. They are featured in a frame of 1920 actresses who epitomized the flapper look. To learn more about her and the role of head shots in casting in the 1920s, I tracked her career using <a href="http://www.nypl.org/collections/articles-databases/proquest-historical-database">Proquest</a> and other electronic resources to access newspapers from the 1920s.</p>
<p>Her father, Ashley Cooper, brought his family from Australia to British Columbia when Cooper was only two years old, in 1905. Both her parents were actors (years later her father would originate the role of Mr. Witherspoon, one of the men “helped” by the murderous sisters in <em>Arsenic and Old Lace</em>), so she spent her childhood traveling through Canadian theaters. She made her own theatrical debut at age three, going on to play a variety of “little boy” roles, later saying “Cowboys and Indians were the things I used to love best.” The family moved to San Francisco where a thirteen-year-old Cooper played in a production of <em>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</em>, where she was chased by real bloodhounds.</p>
<p>Cooper’s career continued through a variety of stage and screen roles on the west coast, as she became a lead player first in several stock companies and movies. The reviews she received ranged from the grudgingly complimentary assessment of the supporting cast of <em>Desert Blossoms</em> who were “well enough selected for the style of work demanded of them,” to outright praise, such as her <em>Variety</em> review for <em>Valley of Content</em>, where she was “sweet, charming, and emotionally a revelation.” She was also getting quite a bit of press attention, particularly from Grace Kingsley of the <em>Los Angeles Times</em>, who wrote features on her in October 1924 and February 1925, each time rapturously praising Cooper, once remarking that during a performance “the audience was gasping at this adorable child’s beauty.” With a reporter in her corner, one who predicted that once Cooper went to New York, the city would “gather the rightfully named Dulcie…right to its heart and never let go again,” it is no surprise that Cooper decided to go east.</p>
<p>The head shots in the exhibit at the Library for the Performing Arts, also available to view on NYPL Digital Collections, are probably evidence of her efforts get cast on Broadway. They were eventually successful, however, Cooper came away from her New York experience somewhat disillusioned. “’But what have you done on Broadway?’ I was asked, and when I had to admit I’d never played there at all, there wasn’t a bit of interest in what I might have done anywhere else,” she remembered. Her frustration with the casting process may have had to do with a part she almost didn’t play on Broadway, in a play called <em>The Little Spitfire</em>. <em>The Little Spitfire</em> had a tortured casting history, but Cooper was cast fairly early into the process, after only one other actress, Winifred St. Clair, had played in an out of town try out. Cooper was replaced after a few more try out performances because “some one persuaded the producer that he should have a well-known New York actress take the role.” Cooper was replaced by Sylvia Field, who already had eight Broadway credits to Cooper’s zero. The more seasoned Broadway actress was only with <em>Spitfire</em> for a few weeks, then the producers hired another California actress, but one with previous Broadway credits. That actress, Sara Sothern, then left the show to get married (and later have a child, Elizabeth Taylor, who went on to be quite successful in the motion picture industry), and then the producers rehired St. Clair. Only after they deemed St. Clair wanting a second time did they return to Cooper, which meant that she got the part, but only after knowing that she was absolutely the last option. As if to add insult to injury, this entire process was written up in a newspaper article, "Dulcie Cooper is Fourth in 'Little Spitfire' Role" (<em>New York Herald Tribune</em>, November 21, 1926, accessed through Proquest). It ran without a byline or author listed, which can mean that it was planted by the production itself. </p>
<p>Cooper may have had experiences like this with other New York productions, but whatever the circumstances, by the time she returned to California, Cooper had a definite view on the casting process, saying “They have a New York brand…It means everything.” She also was frustrated with type casting, which stars know as a trap keeping them in, but Cooper felt as a wall keeping her out, compounding the problems already felt with New York experience. She spoke about this conflict, saying “New York producers very often pick youngsters fresh from dramatic school to play a particular type role… Players who have done stock…are most apt to succeed. If they fill a certain part it is because of acting ability, not because he or she is the type.” Cooper may have encountered the type problem before: at least one reporter had heard a story about her first audition for a movie studio where she was rejected at the ripe old age of 19 as looking too old, until she took down her curly hair and was able to fill a younger type.</p>
<p>Whatever animosity she felt towards the theater industry, Dulcie Cooper never left it behind, even though it never made her a star the way Grace Kinglsey had promised her it would. She went on to have a long career as a character actress, including appearing as Ima Kronkite in the original Broadway run of <em>Picnic</em>, a long run in<em> Fanny</em>, and tours of <em>Annie Get Your Gun</em> and <em>Auntie Mame</em>. Her marriage to stage manager Elmer Brown lasted until his death, and she was the mother of two sons. It’s hard to think that she lost hope after her setbacks in New York; the reporter who wrote down some of her comments about casting in the industry noted that even as she spoke about her frustration with the system, she seemed to “radiate enthusiasm” for theater itself. At any rate, Dulcie Cooper was not the type of woman who wanted things in life, or death, to come easy. “I always thought it would be hard to get to heaven. “ She said, not quite speaking about a play “I have a sort of idea our souls scatter, after death—become part of the universe.”</p>
Theatrehttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/12/07/head-shots-dulcie-cooper#commentsMon, 07 Dec 2015 14:50:58 -0500Alice Live! on Televisionhttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/12/01/alice-live-tv
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/43ae03e0-f6ce-0130-a7d9-58d385a7bbd0"><img alt="LeGallienne as the White Queen" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=swope_621762&amp;t=w" width="400px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Eva LeGallienne, as the White Queen in the 1982 revival of <em>Alice in Wonderland</em>.. Photograph by Martha Swope</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>In the mid-1950s, the networks and independent channels campaigned to establish television watching as a family activity. One of their methods was to develop dramatizations of well-known children’s stories. The best remembered examples include the annual broadcasts of the M-G-M <em>Wizard of Oz </em>and the musical <em>Peter Pan</em>. Please see my blogs in <a href="http://www.broadwayworld.com/topic/NY-Public-Library-for-the-Performing-Arts" rel="nofollow">BroadwayWorld</a> (<a href="http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/NY-Public-Librarys-Rosenberg-Curator-of-Exhibitions-Barbara-Cohen-Stratyner-Ph-D-on-Finding-THE-WIZ-20151123" rel="nofollow">http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/NY-Public-Librarys-Rosenberg-Curato...</a>) for additional information on the contemporary NBC live broadcasts.</p>
<p>In the 1954 and 1955 seasons, two lavish productions of <em>Alice in Wonderland </em>were premiered on television. In each case, they were developed to attract families to the presenting series and their sponsors. Like almost all television then, they were live and therefore eligible to be featured in our current exhibition <a href="http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/alice-live"><em>Alice Live! </em></a>(in the Oenslager Gallery through January 16, 2016).</p>
<p>Our guest curator/scholar Charlie Lovett discovered the 1954 production, which featured Edgar Bergen and his ventriloquist character Charlie McCarthy. The sponsor, Kraft Foods, used it to promote Bergen’s transition from radio to television and the exhibited script specifies that a Cheese Whiz commercial preceded the 2nd Act. Robin Morgan played the title character. It was written by Phyllis Merrill, one of the premiere women in advertising and television. Working for J. Walter Thompson, she can be seen as a model for <em>Mad Men</em>’s Peggy and Joan. Her advertising and television papers are fascinating reading. <a href="http://archives.nypl.org/the/21483">Phyllis Merrill Papers, Billy Rose Theatre Division</a>.</p>
<p>In 1955, <em>Hallmark Hall of Fame</em> broadcast its own <em>Alice in Wonderland</em>, adapted by Florida Freibus from the Frebus/Le Gallienne dramatization, which combines elements from both Alice plots. It was narrated and directed by Maurice Evans. The script, rehearsal schedule and production notes are included in the Maurice Evans Papers. Serendipity alert: We discovered them while investigating his mid-1950s productions of <em>The Magic Flute</em> and <em>The Tempest </em>for next Spring’s exhibitions. As in most television from the early decades, the commercials were written in to the scripts, so we know that Hallmark was promoting packages of favors for children’s parties. Charlie Lovett actually had some examples of Hallmark’s paper Alice masks. Once we verified the existence and schedule for the broadcast, the BRTD staff and volunteers helped to identify a set of NBC contact sheets with Tennial inspired costumes, which documents the rehearsals and mid-1950s special effects. Under a magnifier, we could even see Eva LeGallienne costumed as the White Queen hooked into a rig that allowed her to fly onto the set. <a href="http://archives.nypl.org/the/21297">Run-down and script page, Maurice Evans Papers, Billy Rose Theatre Division</a>.</p>
Advertisinghttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/12/01/alice-live-tv#commentsTue, 01 Dec 2015 11:56:16 -0500Curating Alice Live!https://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/09/25/curating-alice-live
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<div style="text-align:center">
<figure class="caption caption caption"><img class="media-element file-default" src="https://d140u095r09w96.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/Alice%20148%20Poster%20300.jpg" alt="Detail from poster for Emile Littler’s production of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, 1933. Lovett Collection Click and drag to move ​" title="​ Detail from poster for Emile Littler’s production of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, 1933. Lovett Collection Click and drag to move ​" /><figcaption>Detail from poster for Emile Littler’s<br />
production of Alice in Wonderland and <br />
Through the Looking Glass, 1933. <br />
Lovett Collection</figcaption></figure></div>
<p><em>Guest blogger, <a href="https://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/search/C__Sa:(Lovett, Charlie)">Charlie Lovett</a>, Curator of the exhibition, 'Alice Live,' at the New York Public Library for Performing Arts, October 2, 2015 - January 16, 2016.</em>
</p><p>Like Alice Liddell herself, I first encountered the story of <em>Alice in Wonderland</em> not on the page, but in the sound of an Englishman’s voice. On rainy afternoons during childhood, I used to listen to the LP recording of Cyril Ritchard reading the <em>Alice</em> books. I fell in love first with that voice and then with the story. To this day I don’t know why those records were up in our attic. At the same time, I was falling in love with the theatre. Our school did a class play every year and after debuting as the Gingerbread Man in the first grade I played roles from Rumplestiltskin to the wise badger of <em>The Wind in the Willows</em> to Tom Sawyer (a role my father said I had been rehearsing for all my life).</p>
<p>That father was a book collector. When I first started to travel without my parents as a teenager, I would haunt used bookshops looking for copies of <em>Robinson Crusoe</em>, his particular passion. I found I loved those scouting trips, and decided to follow in my father’s footsteps. But what should I collect? He collected a single title, and so would I. And why not <em>Alice</em>? Surely there must be dozens of different editions. I little guessed what a rabbit hole I was falling down. I now have thousands of items—illustrated editions by a century and a half of artists, foreign translations, and a huge collection of other books and pamphlets by Lewis Carroll.</p>
<p>In addition to <em>Alice</em>, the other constant passion in my life has been the theatre. I was a theatre major in college and worked as a children’s playwright for over a decade. So, one of my favorite parts of my collection is the theatrical memorabilia. Collecting materials related to the theatre is a great way to expand one’s book collection beyond books, for, while I do have scripts and other bound items, much of the material is more ephemeral—playbills, posters, flyleaf advertisements, photographs, and so on.</p>
<p>In 1997, I lived with my family in England for six months, and decided to expand my collection to encompass not just Lewis Carroll but also the world he inhabited. A big part of this was trying to document the plays he had seen (he went to hundreds). I sat on the floors of dusty bookshops and at ephemera fairs and compiled a collection of playbills of productions he had attended and photographs of actors he had seen. Along the way I learned a lot about the Victorian theatre.</p>
<p>In one of those shops, the shopkeeper told me every time I came in for a visit that he had some sort of <em>Alice</em> poster at home. Every time we went into London I would stop by the shop, and he had always forgotten to bring it in. It wasn’t until a year later that he finally presented me with a worn paper bag containing some folded poster panels. He told me the poster was incomplete and in poor condition but that I could have it for £75. When I sent what I thought were tattered remains to a poster restoration company, I found out the bookseller had misled me. The poster, which you will see in the exhibition, was complete and in good condition. I later identified the poster as dating from 1933–34, and I believe it is a unique survivor. When I built a new office a few years ago, there was a tall wall at one end of the room, so we designed the bookcases to surround this beauty.</p>
<p>Almost every item in my collection has a story behind it, which appeals to me as a novelist. One of those stories I told in print in 1989, when I published my first book, <a href="https://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb11289588?lang=eng"><em>Alice on Stage</em></a>. It told the story of how Lewis Carroll tried to get his <em>Alice</em> books put onto the professional stage and how a man named Henry Savile Clarke eventually rose to the challenge. Much of the material that documents that story is here in the exhibit, and I have a special fondness for these items, not just because they date from the time of Carroll himself, but because they also tell the story of my own beginnings as a professional writer.</p>
<p>About four years ago, I received a call asking if I would curate an exhibition about <em>Alice</em> in performance at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. As I started to assemble materials for this exhibition, I pored through files here at Lincoln Center and was thrilled to find materials that, in spite of a lifetime of collecting, I had never seen. The collections here are truly rich, especially in documenting New York productions. As you wander through the exhibit, you’ll see many items (perhaps even most of the items), which have never before been on public display.</p>
<p>I hope you will enjoy <em>Alice Live!</em> as much as I have enjoyed selecting and describing the materials in the exhibit. And if this exhibit leads you either back to the pages of <em>Alice</em> or to the theatre, well then you’ll be in one of my favorite places.</p>
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/09/25/curating-alice-live#commentsFri, 25 Sep 2015 17:05:16 -0400Kate Claxton Head Shots: This Week Onlyhttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/08/21/kate-claxton-head-shots
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<p>The Library for the Performing Arts is having a photogenic summer. Between <a href="http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/sinatra-american-icon"><em>Sinatra</em></a> in the Oenslager Gallery and <a href="http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/genius-geoffrey-holder"><em>Geoffrey Holder</em></a> in the Corridor Gallery, we have many examples of compelling images of great performers. We know their talents and accomplishments, but we can visualize them because something in their faces and stances spoke to the camera over their long careers. <a href="http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/head-shots"><em>Head Shots</em></a> is all about the photogenic—an exhibition that makes the visitor look at faces and postures designed to attract, as documented by the camera of that period.</p>
<p>We are extending <em>Head Shots</em> through December, but some of our examples of the earliest formats will be rotating out as of next week. The images in cabinet photographs can be damaged by exposure to light, even the dimmed exhibition lights, so they will be exchanged for other photographs of actors or images of other performers. The preservation term for this is “fugitive content” and we want to avoid that at all costs. So, today’s post will focus on the cartes de visite, cabinet photographs and stereograms of Kate Claxton, an intensely photogenic actress. Most of her remaining early format photographs are in character, so she will have to leave <em>Head Shots</em> for the remaining months.</p>
<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-b0d9-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99"><img alt="Kate Claxton" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=TH-03277&amp;t=w" width="500px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Stereogram of Kate Claxton. Image ID: TH-03277</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>Claxton was a dramatic actress, working for much of her career with A. M. Palmer’s companies in New York. Like so many of her contemporaries, she became associated with a single role. At his Union Square Theater in 1874, she first played the role of Louise, the blind sister in <em>Orphans of the Storm</em>. The French novel by A. D’Ennery and Eugene Corman, as adapted for the stage by Palmer and N. Hart Jackson, dealt with two adopted sisters and their efforts to survive the French Revolution. Like <em>A Tale of Two Cities</em> and <em>The Scarlet Pimpernel</em>, it combined fictional and real characters and ended with a chase sequence to save Louise from the guillotine. If it sounds familiar, it is from the D. W. Griffith film starring Lillian and Dorothy Gish. Sensibly, Claxton had purchased the rights to the play and subsequent films and is now known in silent film history circles for her negotiations with Griffith. There is a commercial stereogram of <a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-b0fc-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99">Claxton with Kitty Blanchard as the sisters</a>. If the pose looks familiar, it is because the Gish Sisters were depicted that way in the characters of Henrietta and Louise for the Griffith Productions. Its promotional text is extreme even for retail over-printed borders from the 1880s. It promoted John O. Shaw, Bath, Me [who sold] “an elegant assortment of Stereographics, Gold Pens and Pencils... the best assortment of Perfume in the City and a line of Toiletries.”</p>
<p>We selected Claxton for the display of early format headshots because she experimented with poses and outfits. There are close-ups in which her profile fills the carte de visite frame and full body images that show her fashionable garments. In modern usage, she “worked” or even “rocked” the camera. The blog’s key image exists as a cabinet photograph by Mora, NYC, and as a stereogram.</p>
<p>She is wearing a two-piece fitted walking dress, made with an overall graphic flower motif. She manages to command the high contrast textile (which might easily overwhelm others) and has arranged the skirt so that its bulk is behind her. There are additional cabinet photographs in this outfit, including <a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-b0e1-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99">one very unusual 7/8 back view</a>. We are clueless about the footstool or ottoman and what is on it. Any ideas?</p>
Popular Culturehttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/08/21/kate-claxton-head-shots#commentsFri, 21 Aug 2015 11:24:06 -0400Contact Strips and Head Shotshttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/08/12/contact-strips-head-shots
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<div class="digcol-image align-right align-right inline inline">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-f260-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99"><img alt="Contact strips of Anna Held" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=TH-20355&amp;t=w" width="300px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Contact Strips of Anna Held (above) and Lillian Burkhardt</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>One of the themes of the exhibition <em>Head Shots </em>is the selection process through which performers view options and chose their headshots. Like the photographs themselves, the selection process has changed with technology. Performers waited for the invention of reproducible negatives before they adopted photographic headshots—access to negatives and duplicates at any time were the selling points for the photographic studios (proclaimed on their promotional cabinet mounts). How did that work and what did that access mean for actors and their agents?</p>
<p>Contact sheets provided the mechanism. They are direct positive prints from the negative, the immediate image on film. Digital photos lack them entirely, as did Polaroids. Most of the contact sheets in the LPA collections are 8’ x 10” photo paper printed with 16 – 20 rectangles or square (depending on the camera) with sprockets bearing negative numbers. More on modern format contact sheets and alternative selection tools in future posts.</p>
<p>Pre-1900 contacts, however, have strips of images, thumbnail size or smaller. In the exhibition, we provide a magnifying sheet so that visitors can see detail. Because of their size and fragility, they had to be adhered to a sturdier backing for safe keeping. The Billy Rose Theatre Division has an oversized scrapbook filled with these strips, which was fascinating but too fragile to display (MWED +++ 97-32 RBS). It was maintained by Benjamin Falk’s New York City studio, and covers 1893-1895 images, but it is likely that Falk and every other studio maintained shelves of these volumes. This blog’s key image is a very rare example of contact strips mounted on a cabinet photography mount. It features 3 rows of images of the musical theater superstar Anna Held, with two of actress Lillian Burkhardt, and was mounted by the Morrison Studio, at Haymarket Theatre, Chicago. This convenient format was most likely used because Held was traveling. The Morrison Studio connection was probably through her manager Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., whose home and early career was in Chicago. Held was an important actress, singer and rag-inspired song-writer in early 20th century musical theater and it is unfortunate that her career has been subsumed to her place in the Ziegfeld biography. But, for a good study of the Ziegfeld partnership, see Eve Golden’s <a href="https://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb14574815?lang=eng"><em>Anna Held and the Birth of Ziegfeld’s Broadway</em></a>.</p>
<p>The artifact also points out the congruence of the photo districts and theater districts in Chicago, as in most American and European cities. In pre-1900 New York, both were in the area between Madison Square and Union Square. This remained the area for photo studios, supplies and labs, although the theaters soon moved uptown to make Times Square the new (and still current) theater district.</p>
Photographyhttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/08/12/contact-strips-head-shots#commentsWed, 12 Aug 2015 14:08:09 -0400Triptych Head Shotshttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/07/27/triptych-head-shots
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-04f7-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99"><img alt="Bertha Kalich" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=TH-25311&amp;t=w" width="400px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Bertha Kalich. Image ID: TH-25311</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>While curating <a href="http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/head-shots"><em>Head Shots</em></a>, we looked for unusual formats that performers believed would represent their careers better than the standard portrait. Or, at least, catch the attention of the producer or theater manager. Last week’s post discussed <a href="http://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/07/08/stereograph-headshot">stereograms</a>, which were common for landscapes and scenes, but rare for portraits. In this post, we look at two unusual examples of triptychs, which combine headshots with character portraits.</p>
<p>The format derived from religious relics and paintings, with notable examples in medieval ivories and murals. The photographic variant began to show up in the 1870s with family portraits. They may have been made with progressive sittings. The photographer would shoot the central figure, then mask it (in a circle or oval shape) on the negative and photograph the other two figures on either side. In some cases, they were taken before a family member left home for military duty or immigration. Since the central figure did not need to be present for the second sitting, triptychs could also be used for mourning portraits. They linked to the tradition of painting or photographing families with portraits of late family members. </p>
<p>Engraving technologies made manipulation of images more common. The Print Collection has a great example of a commercial Disraeli memorial with a cameo portrait and slogan “Mourned alike by peer and peasant.” (<a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-8924-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99">ID-1108444</a>). By 1906, the date of the two <em>Head Shots</em> examples, half tones had made it easy and inexpensive to combine images and texts onto pages or postcards. </p>
<p>Bertha Kalich was a star of the Yiddish theater in Poland and, after 1895, North America. Here Collection is in the Billy Rose Theatre Division. Her triptych shows her in two of her signature roles of strong, noble “modern” women. She starred in Jacob Gordon’s Yiddish-language dramatization of <em>The Kreutzer Sonata</em> (1902-) and in the English-language production by Langdon Mitchell, after 1906. It was directed by Harrison Gray Fiske, who had urged her to work in English. The other play represented is an adaptation of Maeterlinck’s <em>Monna Vanna</em>. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-694c-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99">E. S. Willard triptych</a> shows the actor in two melodramas—Rudyard Kipling’s <em>Man Who Was</em> and Henry Arthur Jones’s <em>The Middleman</em>. The smooth face in the cameo stands in contrast to the contorted poses in his character roles. Willard is also the focus of the Picture Pictorial pages shown in the gallery as an example of steel plate engraving. </p>
American Studieshttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/07/27/triptych-head-shots#commentsMon, 27 Jul 2015 10:44:08 -0400The Stereograph Headshothttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/07/08/stereograph-headshot
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner<div class="digcol-image align-center align-center">
<figure class="caption caption caption digcol-image"><a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-f04f-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99"><img alt="Edwin Booth" src="//images.nypl.org/index.php?id=89096&amp;t=w" width="300px" /></a>
<figcaption class="digcol-caption">Edwin Booth. Stereograph by J. Gurney &amp; Son. Image ID: 89096</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>When we started to think about an exhibition on <em><a href="http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/head-shots">Head Shots</a> </em>based on the Library for the Performing Arts’ collections, we discovered that almost every format in the history of photographic portraits was used as a headshot. Not, despite the title, daguerreotypes, but almost everything with a reproducable negative since then. The one format that we did not expect to find was stereograms (also known as stereographs) since we believed that most such double images showed landscapes or “scenes.” We didn’t expect stereograph headshots because we didn’t expect stereograph portraits. </p>
<p>Stereographs are two images of slightly differing depth, angle or scale which, when viewed simultaneously with special lenses reveal a single three-dimensional result. Stereoscopes were invented independently of photography (c. 1838) and could be used with engravings and other forms of printed image. Essayist Oliver Wendell Holmes, writing about “The Stereoscope and the Stereograph” in the <em>Atlantic Monthly</em> (June 1859), referred only to “squinting magnifiers” that could be used to see more lifelike images of landscapes and other “views.” Most of the lengthy article equates stereographs with landscapes, natural and with buildings, made “solid.” Holmes warned against what he called “groups,” scenes populated with “vulgar models, shamming grace, gentility and emotion by aid of costumes, attitudes, expressions, and accessories.” The full essay is reprinted in Beaumont Newhall’s <a href="http://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb11935977?lang=eng"><em>On Photography</em></a> (1950) and in <a href="https://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb11430391?lang=eng"><em>Photography in Print</em></a>, edited by Vicki Goldberg (1981). </p>
<p>If you search <a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/stereograph-collection#/?tab=navigation">Stereograph in the Digital Collection</a>, you will find a collection of landscapes and scenes, primarily from the later 1800s. They show Africa, the Caribbean, and the U and include what are catalogued as “ethnic types” and Holmes would call "groups." Two large sections are from series distributed by Universal Photo Art Co., 1901, or Keystone View Co., 1900. </p>
<p>The “headshot” stereographs, all from the Library for the Performing Arts’ Billy Rose Theatre Division, seem to be from the 1870s, based on the garments worn. They are credited to the NYC photographic studios that actors preferred for their portraits—Sarony, Falk, Gurney, Mora, etc. There are two general categories. Some, like the Edwin Booth example, are stereographs made at the same session as more conventional cabinet photos. The Booth collection includes examples of those formats for this image by J. Gurney &amp; Son, NY. Booth also had J. Gurney cabinet photographs and stereographs in costume for <a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-f181-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99"><em>Hamlet</em></a>. In other examples (including the Kate Claxton photographs on display in <em>Head Shots</em>), the cabinet photographs are mounted by the original photographer, but the Stereographs are mounted and distributed as part of a Celebrity series. </p>
American Studieshttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/07/08/stereograph-headshot#commentsWed, 08 Jul 2015 12:15:46 -0400